The name Tlokwe may be a thing of the past when Potchefstroom and Ventersdorp merge to form a new municipality on 3 August this year.
As stated in last week’s Herald, Tlokwe City Council has announced that the two municipalities have already started to work together to unfold the process of amalgamation.
According to the council spokesperson, Mr William Maphosa, the names of Josie Palmer (Josie Mpama) or JB Marks are being discussed in most prominent circles as preferences for the newly amalgamated municipality. He emphasised, however, that a community consultation process will be undertaken.
Josie Palmer and JB Marks both served in the Communist Party of South Africa and their names are prominent in political circles.
According to the progress report on the new municipality, Josie Palmer was an anti-pass activist who was born in 1903 and died in 1979. She joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in the 1920s. In 1921, she was elected as secretary of the women’s section of the CPSA. Palmer was a leading figure in Potchefstroom in the 1928 campaign against residential permits.
“John Beaver (JB) Marks was a political activist and trade unionist who was born in Ventersdorp on 21 March 1903.
He joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became the president of the organisation’s Transvaal Branch.
He joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in 1928 and devoted himself to the fight for national and social emancipation. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1932 and eventually became a chairperson,” Maphosa said.
His remains were later repatriated from Russia and reburied in Ventersdorp last year.